To coincide with the UK & European tour dates, Lou Reed will release a newly re-mastered edition of the original 1975 ‘Metal Machine Music’ album on 180 gram double gatefold vinyl, Audio DVD & Blu-ray. Each format features a stereo reproduction of the original quadraphonic master, playable on home theatre systems.

Resistance 77 pop into the big smoke to celebrate the release of their new album "Thirty Years of True Punk & Oi!", double headlining with brummie favourites Drongos For Europe. With a talented support line-up this is gonna be one hell of a party!

Devo to perform at 2010 Winter Olympic Games; first new studio album since 1990 set to follow later this year.

DEVO, one of the world’s most visionary and influential bands, have been invited to perform live at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on February 22nd This performance will conclude a Victory Ceremony and will be broadcast live.

This exclusive appearance comes ahead of the release of the band’s first studio album in nearly twenty years. DEVO are expected to perform old favourites and new material to a global audience estimated to total 3 billion people.

The announcement of DEVO completes the lineup of fifteen headline acts for the Whistler Victory Ceremonies, which also includes Feist, Usher, Our Lady Peace, and The Fray. Each act will perform for one night from February 13th to 27th during the Games at Whistler Medals Plaza. For more information on the lineup, visit www.vancouver2010.com

This news follows the announcement last year that DEVO have signed a unique, ground-breaking worldwide partnership with their original label home Warner Bros. Records that exhibits the band’s long-time commitment to innovation in all aspects of their career.

"We are really excited to have the opportunity to let everyone know that De-evolution is real!" – Jerry Casale

“DEVO were collectively ready to relax in their matching LAZYBOY loungers, sipping drinks by the 19th hole, but the rate things have been falling apart, and the velocity of de-evolution these days left us with no choice but to get back out there and inform people that now, more than ever before, it is time to disobey the mob and think for ourselves! To remind people that biology is destiny, and de-evolution is real! We are back with inspirational tomes of truth and neuro-simpatico sonic nuggets for the entire world, not just our species! From your inarticulate pal,” booji boy oxo

Australian rock titans AC/DC have been announced as headliners for DOWNLOAD FESTIVAL this year. The three day festival will again take place at Donington Park from Friday 11th to Sunday 13th June.

Also announced are Dave Grohl’s rock supergroup Them Crooked Vultures (also featuring members of Led Zeppelin and QOTSA), thrash legends Megadeth, and he mighty Motorhead. Deftones, Stone Temple Pilots, Bullet For My Valentine, Wolfmother and Volbeat are also amongst the first round of announcements.

MICHAEL MONROE MOBILE BACKSTAGE APPLICATION FOR MOBILE DEVICES NOW AVAILABLE FOR FREE VIA APPLE’S IPHONE APPLICATION STORE AND THROUGH MICHAELMONROE.COM

SXSW & U.S. TOUR DATES CONFIRMED FOR THIS SPRING

Legendary rocker MICHAEL MONROE has long been at the forefront of breaking music barriers. This spring he returns with a highly anticipated new group that was announced on Monday, January 25 at a press conference hosted by pro-skater, video director and MTV personality Bam Margera at Swing House Rehearsal & Recording Studios in Hollywood, CA. News about an upcoming album and U.S. tour dates, plus details about the Michael Monroe Mobile Backstage application for mobile devices–the personal hotline between the fans and MONROE’s band anywhere in the world at any given time—was unveiled as well.

The MICHAEL MONROE band features bassist SAMI YAFFA who has played with a remarkable variety of bands including Hanoi Rocks, New York Dolls and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts; guitarist GINGER who has dazzled audiences over the world with his band The Wildhearts. Also on guitar is TODD YOUTH, the master fretman who has played with many top-tier hard rock ensembles including Danzig, Motorhead, Glen Campbell, Samhain, D Generation and most recently Chelsea Smiles. Rounding out the band is drummer JIMMY CLARK, whose resume includes providing rhythm for the likes of Deborah Harry (who would later introduce him to Michael Monroe), Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Glen Burtnick, Rick Derringer, Wynonna, Blackhawk and The Van Zant Brothers. Jimmy also played in Michael´s band Demolition 23 which also included Sami Yaffa.

Coming off the Hanoi Rocks rebirth from 2002-2009, MICHAEL MONROE makes his long-awaited mark on America starting with SXSW and West Coast U.S. dates in March with his incredible team of players. In addition to a schedule of exclusive live performances, which also includes Finland, Sweden, UK in April and east coast dates in May, MICHAEL MONROE and his band are set to enter the studio in the spring to record a new album for the fall.

Fans can keep up with MONROE and his players via the Michael Monroe Mobile Backstage mobile application available now for free through Apple’s iPhone/iPod application store and at www.michaelmonroe.com <http://www.michaelmonroe.com/> . With this, MONROE’s followers everywhere can experience everything that happens on the road and backstage exclusively in real time through their mobile phone. In addition to viewing and sharing videos, pictures and messages both ways directly with the band, they can comment and rate all material and also connect with other fans. The application works in iPhone, iPod Touch, most of Nokia & Sony Ericsson phones and many of LG’s & Samsung’s models.

Mobile Backstage is a mobile fan community platform that provides individually branded social applications for artists and bands. It’s not about conventional web-based social media like Facebook or Twitter where brands are competing with each other for everyone’s attention. Instead, it is hand-crafted to gather the artist’s most devoted followers into one dedicated mobile social environment. The internationally awarded mobile fan community service Mobile Backstage is now on the launch pad. Behind the product is Steam Republic Ltd. Several international pilot cases will be paving the way and one of the first pilots is the Michael Monroe Mobile Backstage. For more information relating Mobile Backstage, visit www.mobilebackstage.com <file:///C:\Documents%20and%20Settings\lcoffey\Local%20Settings\Temporary%20 Internet%20Files\OLKA\www.mobilebackstage.com> .

LYNN TAITT, the Trinidadian guitarist many credit as the founder of rocksteady music, has passed away aged 75 in Montreal, Canada.

He was a regular session musician in the Jamaican ska era for many of the legends, such as The Skatalites and Derrick Morgan, but he is best known for perfecting the rocksteady beat in bands such as The Cavaliers, Comets and The Jets.

Taitt’s distinctive guitar work can be heard on rocksteady classics such as Desmond Dekker’s ‘(007) Shantytown’, Hopteon Lewis’ ‘Take It Easy’ (which many consider the first rocksteady song), Alton Lewis’ ‘Girl I’ve Got A Date’ and many more hits.

Taitt emigrated to Canada in 1968. No cause of death has yet been established.

Vive Le Punk would like to extend our condolences to Nerlin’s friends and family.

Gretsch add, "A big sound resonates from the parallel tone bars and sound post mounted under the top of the 17" wide body, which has a harp tailpiece and a pair of "Black Top" Filter’Tron™ pickups for maximum sustain and tuning stability. Grover® tuners, big block fretboard inlays and gold-plated hardware set against the ominous FLAT BLACK urethane finish are a recipe to incite your senses to euphoria. Also available LEFT-HANDED."

For more details and images of the Rancid frontman’s new signature guitar, click here.

‘Hawkwind At The BBC 1972’, captures the band just after their surprise no. 3 hit single in July with the classic ‘Silver Machine’, and before their live experience ‘Space Ritual’, which was recorded on tour later that same year.

Whilst the bulk of this double CD release is made up of the live set recorded for the BBC In Concert programme, it opens with a previously unreleased session recorded for Johnnie Walker, featuring a shortened version of the ‘Doremi Fasol Latido’ album classic ‘Brainstorm’, and a version of the then hit single ‘Silver Machine’, featuring Lemmy on vocals as per the single.

The In Concert itself, a hypnotic continuous performance, is presented in both mono and stereo versions. The mono version was previously released by Windsong on CD in 1991 and has been remastered and re-indexed to include all of the pieces originally performed, and the concert itself in its entirety.

The stereo version has long been in the domain of the bootleggers as an off-air recording known as the "Broadcast" version. This mix was in fact distributed by the BBC for broadcast internationally and features an edited ‘Brainstorm’, missing approximately four-minutes from the front of the song, a shorter ‘Welcome To The Future’ and ‘Electronic No. 1’ (not indexed on the previous CD release), but longer a Countdown introduction. Officially released for the first time, apart from being in stereo, the sound quality is superior to the mono version and the mix is generally more exciting.

Whilst the CD racks and on-line listings are full of unofficial and poor Hawkwind live recordings, this set is a prime chunk of Space-Rock from the band at the peak of their powers and is an essential addition to the band’s huge discography.

Tracklisting:

CD1:

Johnnie Walker Radio 1 Session (Mono) – Previously Unreleased

1. Brainstorm

2. Silver Machine

In Concert at The Paris Theatre, London on September 28th, 1972 (Mono):

3. Countdown

4. Born To Go

5. The Black Corridor

6. Seven By Seven

7. Brainstorm

8. Electronic No. 1 – Previously Unreleased

9. Master Of The Universe

10. Paranoia

11. Earth Calling

12. Silver Machine

13. Welcome To The Future

CD2:

In Concert at The Paris Theatre, London on September 28th, 1972 (Stereo). All Previously Unreleased

The Tenebrous Liar are Steve Gullick – vocals & guitar, Tony Ash – guitar, Brendan Casey – bass and Tom Glendining – drums, the Richard Warren produced album is the line-ups first together. This is a very different incarnation of the band who have been releasing records since 2006, the last being 2008’s critically acclaimed Tenebrous Liar’s Last Stand which, like the new offering, was released by the staunchly independent label TV Records.

‘Jackknifed & Slaughtered’ sees The Tenebrous Liar dynamically evince their full potential both as songwriters and as an incredibly powerful musical force, they are now clearly more than capable of producing emotionally charged, direct, structured and melodious songs, delivered straight from the heart and gut. From the vivid rancour of ‘Suffer You’, through the subterranean soul searching within ‘No Guiding Light’, ‘Nothing Is Plenty’ and ‘Cut Down Your Love’, the blank generation post sense response of ‘Nothing To Say’, the dramatic howl of desire and plea for reconciliation which ignites the title track, the yearning ‘No Relief’ to the finality of ‘Is This How It Ends?’

‘Jackknifed & Slaughtered’ is an album of two distinct halves, side one devised to hook the listener with up-tempo deliberately catchy pop songs, side two has darker leanings, more contemplative, brooding and subdued. “The way these songs developed is definitely a consequence of the addition of our new drummer, Tom.” opines lyricist and internationally renowned music photographer Steve Gullick, considering the thrilling musical evolution of the band. “He’s just facilitated my musical dreams and made us all much better musicians, he and Bren have become this amazing rhythm section.”

‘Jackknifed & Slaughtered’ is a thoroughly exhilarating and immediate experience, the bands utter commitment to creating a stirring soundscape backdrop to Gullick’s confessional words of experience is never in doubt. Underpinned by the rock solid rhythmic foundation provided by Glendining’s drums and Casey’s bass, Ash’s innovative guitar inflames The Tenebrous Liar tunes while Gullick’s idiosyncratic guitar and vocals bring poignant emotional clout to the album.

Gullick and the band have intuitively fashioned their own compelling compositions and utterly distinctive sound "the songs were well rehearsed and played extensively live before we went into the studio", Gullick also acknowledges producer Richard Warren’s contribution to the successful realization of the group’s clamourous blast on ‘Jackknifed & Slaughtered’, working in the same isolated Nottingham studio where Rich worked with Spiritualized on their ‘Songs in A and E album’: “Rich breathes music, just knows how we need to sound, his only brief was, ‘We just want to play the songs live and we want you to record them, we have four days.”

The Tenebrous Liar are not afraid to tell uncomfortable truths on Jackknifed & Slaughtered and they deserve your immediate attention. The band will be touring in support of ‘Jackknifed & Slaughtered’ and you are strongly advised to catch one of Their renowned incendiary performances. The Tenebrous Liar take no quarter. Freedom will reign……

Original AC/DC singer DAVE EVANS will release his new album ‘Judgement Day’ in the UK through Rocksector on April 12th. The album was released in Australia in 2008. For more info on the vocalist and his album, head to daveevansrocks.com

Johnny Cash’s final album, titled ‘American VI: Ain’t No Grave’, will be released on Feb. 26th, the date that would have been the rebel country legend’s 78th birthday.

The album was again produced by Rick Rubin, features guest appearances from the likes of Matt Sweeney, Smokey Hormel and The Avett Brothers.

The album will also feature cover versions of Sheryl Crow’s "Redemption Day," Kris Kristofferson’s "For The Good Times," Tom Paxton’s "Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound", Bob Nolan’s "Cool Water," Ed McCurdy’s "Last Night I had the Strangest Dream", J.H. Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes’s "Satisfied Mind," and Queen Lili’uokalani’s song of farewell, "Aloha Oe." It will also feature ‘I Corinthians: 15:55’, a new song written over the last three years of his life before he died in September 2003.

Memphis garage punk rocker Jay Reatard died in his sleep, aged just 29, early in the morning of January 13th. The singer had recently been complaining of flu-like symptoms to friends but no cause of death has yet been established.

He played in the bands The Reatards, The Lost Sounds, The Final Solutions, Nervous Patterns, Angry Angles, Terror Visions and Destruction Unit over the years before embarking on a well-received solo career in 2006. His final album was last year’s ‘Watch Me Fall’.

Boston punks Street Dogs will head into the studio in February to record their second Hellcat album, the follow-up to 2008’s ‘State Of Grace’ and their fifth album to date. Vocalist Mike McColgan announced on MySpace:

"We are set to go into the studio to record our new album in February.The studio we will record at is the Blasting Room in Fort Collins,Colorado. Also we are excited to be working with Rick Barton as he will be co producing our fifth release with Johnny Rioux. We expect to release this next effort some time in late August or early September 2010 on Hellcat records and we will launch a worldwide headlining tour to support the record. Very soon as well we will be finalizing and anouncing upcoming US dates and European tour plans.